NorthernRedStar.3054

I was adamant this had to be a PvP post.

Nerf Vampiric Aura.

That's what I like to call [fundamentally] broken design. Sometimes - not always - people complaining about a champion, a character or a build even after it has received a number of nerfs is a sign of this concept existing within said medium.

Being either doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the overall quality of one's arguments or mindset. I simply laid it out as it is. As such, no one should be able to get offended over it. Should.

Might see a remaster of Dragonstorm at some point in the faraway future. Considering their current resources and and the way their staff's being worked, I doubt they'll have time or stamina left to push out anything new regarding these two dragons, though. Happy to be proven wrong, Anet!

This, to an extent. The issue isn't "there's too much damage" - there isn't. When some builds (and some classes) have access to absurd combinations of survivability and dps, it emphasizes the issue we're currently having: misplays aren't [= can't be] punished enough and are too easy to recover from. However, what also poses an issue is when a spec is too strong both at range and in melee. Because of its resets, holosmith does not have a proper moment of weakness.

It's almost funny how squishy core guard feels by comparison. They're strictly inferior in a 1vX scenario where X > 1.

Grenadier holo absolutely oozes with [uninteractive] mechanics, which is how it's been able to compete in the meta for, what, well over a year now? Two years and some? Despite all the nerfs? Just look at the Explosives tree, you get barrier on an offensive ability, you get an offensive ability on a dodge, you get a defensive condition [blind] on a dodge and you stack vulnerability on an area whenever you dodge roll + hit. It's absolutely loaded with synergistic goodies combining offense on defense and vice versa. Combine this with the insane access to passive survivability that engineer has, on top of the burst + sustained dps granted by holosmith specialization (which allows you to "double" on elixirs), and it's easy to say no amount of number shifting will FIX the build. It'll either be unusable garbage or broken by default. It's funny that people complain about thieves when this abomination exists. Prot holo needs no explaining. You can't kill them, they will [eventually] kill you. This is the guy warrior mains' GF tell them not to worry about.

Which makes it even sadder that it lacks proper support. Guild Wars [1] was a PvP game with sizeable PvE content on the side. This was, by all means and purposes, meant to be a PVP game, too.

You know I care. And that new emote face is kawaii-desunee.

Rev has counterplay. REMOVE!!

No, you will not abandon your band of progressive cross-species liberals.

The audacity knowing they're getting away with it with their alts.

Same thing happened to me tonight when I logged in to recap decay (busy week). After a certain hour, it's nothing but win traders and bots (~1 AM, roughly, give or take 30 mins). I'm uncertain which is more pitiful; win trading or Anet refusing to properly punish people for it.

Nice bait title. "Teef has too much blind!" --> there's a single thief utility that has bad design. While I agree Smokescreen should see some changes, eventually, it's not among the most problematic skills in the game atm. If you're honestly complaining about Shadow Shot, imagine how much initiative the thief must spend on a telegraphed skill just to keep you blinded for a few seconds in a row.

https://i.redd.it/m1866wrhfnl21.jpg

You can occasionally see a condi thief preying on new players, but aside from that they haven't been all that strong safe for a few specific builds they counter. In other words, they didn't warrant a nerf. The stealth options made them annoying much in the same vein as d/p, but that's just the result of reduced build diversity within the class. Btw, these changes to promote PvE condi thief are a meme, when they didn't even touch power. They expect SLB and banner nerfs to enable thief for high end content? Right.

Visions of the Past: Forging Steel had me excited both in terms of character cast and the type of content we would be getting in future releases. Ryland's character arc, as well as the charr story experience, would've in general benefited a lot of from one or two more warband missions. While I've seen a lot of complaints saying Forging Steel is too long, in my opinion it took some elements from Guild Wars 1's missions and integrated them into the fundamental base of Guild Wars 2. And, for a first installment, it did so very well. The mission was enjoyable and felt fresh - on top of having an adjustable level of difficulty thanks to challenge motes. On top of the gameplay, we got to experience and familiarize ourselves with the Steel Warband. This adds more depth, not only to Ryland, but the charr as a whole. Which would've made their eventual demise all the more heartfelt - with Ryland coming across as a more sympathetic character. Which in turn would've yielded more bang for the buck that was Champion's End (with his death still being the "highlight" of the chapter). Having another visions chapter between Episode 3 and 4 would've also served to create a sense of longevity for the charr civil war; which, as of now, feels like got solved in the span of a few weeks. Also, thanks to visions releases being shorter and more concise (no new map), the devs would potentially get a short breather and be less taxed going forward. Regarding the actual ending for the Icebrood Saga: have Primordus kill Jormag and escape into the deepest depths of Tyria, and Ryland die to the player and Rytlock. Once Cantha is said and done, we return to the Tyria in a manner reminiscent of GW1, where the tremors beneath the surface level are getting worse and worse, creating havoc all the way in Cantha and Elona alike. Perfect setup for a final expansion where Primordus is killed as the last remaining elder dragon. An expansion that could, in homage to EotN and perfect thematic sense, revive dungeons. BAM.

Missed the Bewildering Ambush change?

Ideally, we would've had a 'Crash Bandicoot: Warped' -style final clash between the two - Aku Aku vs Uka Uka, with Cortex and Crash caught in the middle, anyone? Either the story needed to be longer (more chapters) or either of the two dragons needed to survive the clash - in my opinion, this should've been Jormag. But a case can be made for both. Given the lack of resources, I wouldn't go too hard on them on the actual gameplay. I would, however, criticize how the situation was handled. Just change the name of the expansion if the deal is really that big for you.

With side node duelists being too tanky for thief to take on 1v1, and their mobility being nearly on par, what role does thief serve in the PvP scene? Aside from being an occasional counter-pick? After the next patch (May 11th), neither power nor condi thief will have sufficient kittenmage output to kill anyone on their own. And that would be fine if thief also wasn't the realistically squishiest clkitten by a mile while also being matched in terms of mobility by revenants, holosmith and mirage - all of whom provide superior utility and burst by comparison, and synergize better with a shoutguard or scourge. Is competitive thief dying? It's already dead in higher end PvE.

A big issue with the current matchmaking is, a lot of the newer / worse players do not understand the concept of overextending, which makes playing thief a fair bit more difficult - even negligible - than before. This combined with the lack of understanding over terrain advantage points and LoS means you'll be facing a lot of 1v5 time. You're better off with a teamfighter that can spam AoEs. Even a solo queue support is occasionally better at carrying. Thief definitely comes with the biggest "I can feel this is getting too dangerous and I need to bail" vibe. It's tricky but the "get in and get things done and get out" is what makes good thieves good. That and rotational awareness, which just means picking the most effective destination when traveling around the map (which a lot of other not-thieves do extremely poorly as well). Ideally you'd be leaving fights sometime before the enemy is timed to spare time, but what often tends to happen, nowadays and in this meta, is an ally being - for the lack of a better word - incapable of finishing a downed opponent before bad things start to happen. On the opposite side of spectrum, this is why thieves are nearly always so potent in tourneys. When you can trust a teammate, duos included, thief is very dangerous in both roaming and ganking. In a soloq setting, though? Feels potentially the worst it's been in a while. At least for me.

Raid Boss: Lich Form solo version.

AoE Spammer Wars.

A big issue with the current matchmaking is, a lot of the newer / worse players do not understand the concept of overextending, which makes playing thief a fair bit more difficult - even negligible - than before. This combined with the lack of understanding over terrain advantage points and LoS means you'll be facing a lot of 1v5 time. You're better off with a teamfighter that can spam AoEs. Even a solo queue support is occasionally better at carrying.